The emergence of “social innovation” as the term that has gained mainstream attention is not surprising. For decades, “innovation” has been a glamorous term used by business and government to excite business leaders, entrepreneurs, and the general public to think about the future with hope. Social innovation has leapt into the spotlight for many of the same reasons. When it comes to today’s social issues, we face large challenges, many of which have persisted for decades, and the idea of social innovation give us hope for a new way to solve old problems.

But turning that hope into measurable progress on our toughest social challenges is going to require discipline–to ensure this attention brings true change. In other words, now that we have firmly established social innovation as a possible way to generate greater solutions, the big question becomes: what do we need ensure this focus on social innovation works?

In the end, social innovation must be about ensuring that more resources are allocated to what works, in order to accelerate our solutions to the tough social issues that we face now and those that will arise in the future. One of the lessons of the efforts to address social problems in the United States in recent decades, I believe, is that no one sector has the resources and the knowledge to tackle today’s social issues alone. We need to create what I would call a social impact market that enables greater collaboration across sectors and social issues–in order to foster innovation and direct resources towards the most effective approaches. How do we realize this new kind of market? I believe the answer lies in the development of cadre of leaders from all sectors that fundamentally commit to fostering social innovation to ensuring that resources are allocated based on performance. We need great champions from the three sectors to become models for hundreds of thousands of others. A colleague of mine recently said, “When a challenge to a system has reached mainstream, the next stage of its evolution is to ensure there are enough well-trained leaders to make that system stick.” Perhaps that is part of the story that will unfold in the next chapter of social innovation.

To start, there was the Obama Administration’s commitment forging a new role for government, which was evident in her words.  As Ms. Obama put it at one point: “With a little nudge from government and a lot of private investment, we can create a powerful new model for making change in our communities.”  This is the vision that many of us, including Root Cause through its Public Innovators initiative, have been working to realize in recent years.  We are finding a middle path between the two ideologies that have dominated political rhetoric over the past several decades: that of the FDR-styled ‘government-as-service-provider’ on the one-hand and the Reagan-inspired ‘government-is-the-problem’ on the other.  That new way of operating – in which government plays a role in orchestrating cross-sector approaches to creating social impact – is still taking shape.  But initiatives like the Social Innovation Fund are providing hopeful glimpses of what it will look like.

In addition, yesterday’s event helped to reveal a new path forward for another key stakeholder in the future of social problem solving: our nation’s foundations. Ms. Obama’s remarks called attention to two important and complementary roles that government and foundations can play by partnering together.  While government can help to facilitate collaboration from the top down, foundations can help ensure that the ideas we encourage and ultimately spread come from our local communities. Deeply entrenched in the communities in which they operate, foundations already know the needs and some of the best solutions to addressing them.  By recognizing the need to direct resources based on results and fostering the continual creation of new ideas in their communities, foundations can play an essential role in bringing about healthy social impact market that fosters innovation and directs resources for solving social problems based on performance.

It was clear yesterday that a new generation of leaders at our nation’s foundations is poised to meet this challenge. A letter of support submitted immediately after the First Lady’s remarks by the Council on Foundations on behalf of many of our country’s community foundations impressively summarized the opportunity: “We know that to make progress on our challenges, we need to find and support the best, most promising ideas and enlist all parts of our communities in implementing these solutions. We also know that with the right resources, the right partnerships, and the right collaborations, we can develop new solutions that can be replicated and moved to other communities to address their needs.”

Yesterday’s event at the White House, I believe, brought us one step closer on our journey toward a more effective, twenty-first century approach to today’s social challenges. We are beginning to speak the same language about finding and spreading solutions and making investments based on results.  We are beginning to see the variety of roles that need to be played in order to align and amplify existing efforts to solve social problems. Of course, the road ahead is still long, but yesterday left me feeling hopeful and energized for what will come next.

What will it take to ensure that resources – not only money, but also in-kind donations, volunteer time, and partnerships – go to the organizations that are best positioned to create social impact? One key factor, I believe, is the emergence of a new generation of philanthropists – social impact investors, we might call them – who prioritize using information about nonprofit performance to guide their decisions. We need these leaders to help change the current culture of nonprofit giving in the United States. The challenge is that donors – whether they are foundations, individuals, or government agencies – often do not have the information they need to ensure that their resources are going to organizations with promising new ideas or proven, high-performing solutions.  As a result, too often, money flows to organizations based on existing relationships or aspirational mission statements, rather than a clear understanding of the outcomes that an organization is seeking to achieve and the results that it has already demonstrated.

On Tuesday night, Root Cause hosted its 7^th annual Social Innovation Forum showcase event, which provided a glimpse of what this new generation of philanthropists will look like. The event, modeled after private-sector venture capital forums, featured six Boston-area nonprofits , identified through a rigorous selection process, as up-and-coming organizations with promising new approaches in the areas of workforce development, obesity prevention, healthy aging, homelessness, empowering women and girls, and youth development through the arts. Local foundation leaders and individual donors attended to hear the organizations pitch their approaches, with an emphasis on their performance to date, and the resources they need to increase that performance and spread their ideas.

These leaders’ responses were enthusiastic. During the event, we asked attendees to commit some resource, be it a new connection, an in-kind or monetary donation, or a date to meet for coffee, to one or two of the organizations they found most interesting. Root Cause then collected these commitments and posted numerous examples through the #sif2010 hashtag on Twitter. These resources, I believe, will help these promising nonprofits creating lasting social impact for Boston’s residents.

Looking ahead, as we work to create a vibrant social impact market that fosters social innovation and directs resources based on performance, we will need more of these philanthropic leaders who demand information about performance and are ready to direct resources to those organizations with the most promising and proven approaches.

The compact is an exciting and necessary step toward bringing the nonprofit, philanthropic, business, and government sectors together to move the bar on pressing social issues in the areas of economic development, education, the environment, health and health care, and youth, family, and elderly issues. In an op-ed I wrote in the Boston Business Journal almost a year ago calling for an Office of Social Innovation in the Massachusetts, I said that, too often, innovative and proven approaches already operate in our communities, but are not given the support they need from government. The state has the potential to help the promising ones extend their reach and have far greater impact by putting new policies, systems, and resources into place.

Here is what the compact commits the administration and the nonprofit sector to do:

The Commonwealth has agreed to:

• Welcome social innovation organizations with vision and experience in improving the lives of citizens
• Initiate a conversation with providers on the potential for unprecedented action and new approaches on infrastructure and government operations
• Commit to exploring the application of new, results-driven solutions to persistent problems that have gone unsolved despite repeated efforts and partnerships
• Explore new opportunities to take better advantage of locally cultivated talent directed at educating and caring for residents
• Provide new supports to promote the work of social innovation partners to reach a larger group of residents in need of assistance

The Social Innovators have agreed to:

• Engage in an active problem-solving dialogue with the leaders of state government
• Provide consulting services to government agencies to build the Commonwealth’s portfolio of social innovation initiatives and reach more residents
• Supply support, guidance and management for select projects based on the needs of residents
• Serve as a central point of contact for all potential national and local social innovation initiatives
• Channel information to the Governor and his cabinet regarding opportunities for Massachusetts on these opportunities as appropriate

There are many examples of the nonprofits that would be able to do much more with such support. Year Up has developed an exciting and successful training program for urban young adults to close the opportunity divide by providing them with professional skills, college credits, and corporate internships. Strong Women, Strong Girls, a program founded by a visionary college student, uses the study of female role models and a creative mentoring program to build self-esteem and leadership skills among at-risk girls in grades 3-5.

In our work at Root Cause, we have identified many more examples of organizations with promising new ideas through our Social Innovation Forum. Our recent reports on school readiness and the best organizations working on the issue in MA have inaugurated a new methodology for using data to find the highest-performing organizations with proven approaches to their social issue. And our partner in today’s signing at the State House, New Profit Inc., is supporting a portfolio of leading nonprofits that are working to dramatically improve opportunities for children, families, and communities.

Today is just a beginning. There is much more for all of us to do to leverage the work of these organizations to better address every Massachusetts resident’s basic needs. I applaud Governor Patrick for having the vision to play a leadership role in that work.

Landrieu’s job will not be an easy one, to say the least. As we approach the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans still faces many of the challenges that the destruction of the city exposed and exacerbated. Add to that the burden of our nation’s current economic situation, and New Orleans appears as a microcosm of the United States and the issues we are currently confronting. When Landrieu walks into New Orleans City Hall, he will encounter, on the city level, a similar situation to that which President Obama found when he took office.

There are a number of reasons to be hopeful about what Landrieu can do. First, the overwhelming victory of the first white mayor in 30 years in a city where 67% of the population is black suggests that New Orleans is moving past the racial divisions that it has experienced in recent decades. Landrieu and the city’s population appear eager to work with leaders representing all backgrounds and colors to build a better New Orleans.

Additionally, the election of Landrieu provides an important opportunity to see up close how forward-thinking government leaders throughout the United States are taking on new roles in order to move the bar on our most pressing challenges in economic development; education; the environment; health and health care; and youth, family, and elderly issues. Landrieu represents this new breed of government leader who is taking bold steps to identify and help to spread the most effective, efficient, and sustainable solutions to social problems. Through the Office of Social Entrepreneurship that he founded while serving as the state’s Lieutenant Governor, Landrieu has demonstrated a commitment to ensuring that government resources for solving social problems go to organizations with proven results, facilitating public-private partnerships that maximize resources for addressing social problems, and creating a policy environment that encourages social innovation. Last April, we awarded the then Lieutenant Governor the first Root Cause Public Innovator Award precisely for this new style of leadership and his practical approach to the state’s social problems.

Now, as New Orleans enters a new chapter in its efforts to rebuild after Katrina, it is time for the nation to re-engage with New Orleans as well. With its new mayor, New Orleans is poised to provide us with a great American story of a city that pulled itself out of a state of dismay and distress to become a shining example of American social innovation. And that story will include many crucial lessons for other American cities as well.

This Saturday’s election in New Orleans features the latest in a string of campaigns in which a candidate’s core messages include social innovation or civic engagement. Lt. Gov. Landrieu, for whom this is a third attempt at New Orleans’ top spot, established Louisiana’s Office of Social Entrepreneurship – the first such office in the nation. When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck, they revealed the existence of successful approaches that that people of Louisiana had already been testing, as well as a need to bring successful models from elsewhere to fill in gaps. The lieutenant governor realized, however, that there was currently no good way for the government to facilitate the efficient spread of these ideas, efforts, and resources. Having the foresight to see that government could play a major role in effectively channeling these efforts and giving social entrepreneurs the skills they needed to give their ideas the best chance at having significant impact, the lieutenant governor founded the Office – and it has served as an example to many similar efforts around the country as more and more officials realize their own potential to facilitate the spread of enduring social impact. To learn more about the lt. governor’s social innovation agenda in Louisiana, you can watch him speak about the work at an event at the Aspen Institute and listen to a discussion between the two of us at the 2009 Social Enterprise Summit.

But Mitch Landrieu is not the only one who has put social innovation front and center. Paul Thissen, a state representative who is running for governor of Minnesota, has just introduced legislation that supports “innovation and multi-sector collaboration,” potentially opening new doors for cross-sector partnerships to accelerate social problem solving in that state. Alan Khazei, who ran for the senate seat left vacant by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, ran on the platform of “Big Citizenship” and was significantly buoyed by supporters of his work at City Year and the example it has set for national service. And Virginia Congressman Tom Perriello has been recognized for his focus on social entrepreneurship and lists “service” squarely on his Issues and Legislation page.

I’ve been excited to notice that this message is being repeated more and more frequently as many of us work together to spread a social innovation agenda across sectors and social issues. Candidates are beginning to use it as a differentiating message that has the potential to cut through the clutter and win elections because they know that citizens are disillusioned by the gridlock and stagnation they are used to seeing at all levels of government. As candidates search for ways to resonate with voters that are practical and solution-oriented, they increasingly see social innovation as part of that story.

I wanted to share some quick observations, and will offer more thoughts in the near future. My initial reactions:

1. The Corporation and the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation did an incredible job gathering viewpoints from so many different people and perspectives. It is clear that a great deal of thought was put into this document.
2. The awards are stated to be “in the approximate amounts of $5 million to $10 million to approximately five to seven intermediary organizations.” Because of the size of the awards, the one to one cash match, and the limited number of recipients, fewer organizations will be eligible to apply to the Fund than many had hoped for. While this may be a disappointment to some, it does show a commitment to demonstrating to Congress and the country that success the first time out of the gate is a priority (and is more likely given the limited number of awards) − and in the long run, hopefully this will allow for growth of this and similar programs in the future. This was, I am sure, a tough decision, but in the end seems like the right one.
3. Lastly, it appears that the Fund will promote a very thoughtful, rigorous, and most importantly, innovative approach to government investment in promising nonprofit solutions that will serve as an excellent resource for other government agencies to learn from. This is, I believe, one of the most important aspects of the Fund as we look to it to catalyze and spread this kind of thinking throughout city, state and federal levels of government.

Please note, the public comment period closes on January 15th!

I wanted to share a few highlights from the conference:

The conference opened with Liz Darling, President & CEO of OneStar, announcing the seven Social Innovators selected for their new Texas Social Innovation Initiative, which was launched in partnership with Root Cause and Dallas Social Venture Partners. The Innovators are:

• Vision Regeneration, Inc.
• Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas – Amachi Program
• Rainbow Days, Inc. - Family Connection Program
• Dallas Concilio of Hispanic Service Organizations – Parent Involvement Program
• Shared Housing Center, Inc.
• Central Dallas Ministries – Nurture, Knowledge and Nutrition Program
• H.I.S. BridgeBuilders – Employment training program

I delivered a keynote address, which challenged the audience of over 500 nonprofit leaders in Texas to rise to the occasion and adopt a new kind of leadership. In the speech I spoke about the lack of progress on some significant social problems in Texas and posited that, in order to make the kind of progress that Texas needs, a new kind of leadership, driven by impact over ego, is required – and that it could be the difference between an organization surviving or thriving. You can read the speech here.

I was also fortunate to facilitate a panel after my keynote that featured a truly dynamic mix of people, including Stacy Caldwell from Dallas Social Venture Partners, Robert Marbut from Haven for Hope, Nadiyah Morris Coleman from Louisiana’s Office of Social Entrepreneurship, and Reshma Saith, who manages corporate responsibility at BG America’s Global LMG.

We also held a live-streamed, interactive conversation about the Texas partnership and the role of government in supporting social innovation. Viewers participated in the conversation by watching the live feed and asking questions through the portal and through Twitter with the #txsi hashtag. It was exciting to participate in such an innovative format, along with Liz Darling and Stacy Caldwell. If you missed the live stream, you can always watch it here.

Later in the day, OneStar was joined by the Governor’s wife, Anita Perry, to present the Governor’s Volunteer Awards. This year the awards included, for the first time ever in Texas, a Public Innovator award given to Mary Elizabeth Wick, of 2-1-1 Texas Information and Referral Network at the Texas Health and Human Services commission.

Lastly, I wanted to mention the professionalism of the conference and the OneStar team. Liz Darling has assembled an impressive team including Courtney Suhr, Chris Bugbee, Jada Simpson, and Ariel Romell. Along with Louisiana, Texas and specifically OneStar can serve as models to learn from in how to advance social innovation and bring the three sectors together.

Photo via flickr by irrezolut

We hosted the event because we wanted to broaden the conversation and educate people in the federal government about the importance of social innovation. We were fortunate to have an exciting group of attendees, including the recently appointed head of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Patrick Corvington, Mike Firestone from Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s office, Jim Fruchterman from Benetech, and Bill Strathman from Network for Good.

We opened the morning with a welcome from Virginia Congressman Jim Moran and an introduction from myself, and then heard from a panel of social innovators followed by a panel of government leaders. You can listen to audio from the event by clicking on the session links below:

Session 1:

My introduction (click here to read my remarks)

Opening Remarks from Virginia Congressman Jim Moran

Social Innovators Panel: Keith Artin, the COO of TROSA; Marcia Kerz, president of OASIS; Ellen Lawton, executive director of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership; and Terri Steingrebe, Bonnie CLAC’s CEO, discussed the critical role that government can play in furthering their work, the barriers they face, and what government can do to accelerate their impact.

Session 2:

Government Leaders Panel: Chris Campbell, Sen. Hatch’s legislative director; Judy Reese Morse, Louisiana Lt. Governor Landrieu’s chief of staff; Peter Frosch, Rep. McCollum’s legislative director; Brian Van Hook, the senior policy advisor to the Senate Small Business Committee/Sen. Landrieu’s office; Marta Urquilla, the Senior Advisor for Social Innovation from the Corporation for National and Community Service; and Shivam Mallick-Shah, the Director of Special Initiatives for the Office of Innovation & Improvement at the Department of Education, gave their perspectives from Congress, federal agencies, and at the state level on what must be done to accelerate social innovation with government’s support.

For me, there were a couple of really critical takeaways from the event:

• We have to find a way to turn the conversation from the few to the many. Although this work is getting a lot of attention right now, the reality is that only a few members of Congress and government agencies at the city, state and federal levels are championing this work. We must convince people from agencies and in elected offices that this work is important.
• We need to clarify exactly what we’re working toward: the better mousetrap. We have to work hard not to get caught up in our own jargon, and to simplify the message about how what’s different here could make real change. When we lead off with “social innovation,” it often falls on deaf ears. How do we refocus and emphasize that this is about social needs and addressing problems in a different way, and communicate that we are really talking about improving people’s lives?

I especially encourage you to listen to the panel featuring government leaders. I believe it is the first time that representatives from Congress, government agencies, and a state have come together to share their viewpoints about social innovation. They each had very different perspectives on both why and what needs to be done to continue the work, and I know I learned a lot from the conversation. I hope you will too.

You can also see clips from the panels and video interviews with various attendees on Root Cause’s YouTube channel.

Photo by banna123456 via flickr